Friday, February 27, 2009

I've been sick with the flu this week and laying in bed feeling sorry for yourself leads to some serious thinking time...my mind went lots of places and when I felt good enough to sit behind a sewing machine my idea for this challenge materialized.

I made this little quilt, 'Building Peace' for the Illuminated Phrase Challenge a few months ago. Mine is more like an illuminated statement. The quote I chose to illustrate was this one:"Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.”John F. Kennedy

I had dinner with a friend from Houston a week ago. She had just attended her son's homecoming ceremony in Colorado a few days before our dinner. He had served in Iraq for almost a year. While she was proud and so happy he was home, the concern for him, about what he had experienced, and how he might be affected was evident in her face and peeked through her words. I made this second quilt for Owen. It's called 'Coming Home'. It's full of symbolism and messages in the piecing and quilting, but I will leave that to you to interpret.While I was sewing this quilt I started thinking of my brother-in-law who was in Iraq for 2 tours as an army surgeon. He was in the first push into Baghdad. His wife generously shared letters and emails that he wrote during his tours. I remember talking with him after he returned and he shared how difficult it was to operate and patch men together, conrades and combatants on tables right next to each other. He told me one day he had just saved the life of an insurgent and he pulled one of the field commanders aside and told him to do his job right next time. In other words, he would have rather had the man dead than have had to save his life. He told me he had never seen pure evil before. It was heartwrenching to listen to him talk. It was rare that he did. He is a changed man.

This last quilt is for him. I call it 'Healing'.

I hope you will forgive me the touch of gray...it was the perfect addition to give the feeling I was going for. Both quilts are made from the scraps from the first little quilt. (there was a LOT of waste in the cutting of that quilt!)

Monday, February 23, 2009

I finally pieced together my Black & Limey...all blocks were done and hanging beautifully on my design wall all through January and into the first few weeks of February. I took a 2 day trip with a friend to the ocean and put it together! I love how it has turned out! I plan to have a friend quilt it for me, unsure what and how to quilt it yet. I made the borders as wide as the blocks - 8", to show off the design in the fabric. I'm very happy with the end results:

I have another Black/White top to work on as well, that is from a UFO over 2 years ago. I'll pick it up next!

Here's the black, white and red log cabin top finished! I am so glad this is done-I was beginning to feel like it was jinxed! I finished the blocks up with no problem but then once I started to do the sashing things started to go wrong-from my first miscutting the sashing too wide to two irons burning out!

Here you can see most of the different whites I used: a white with red, a white with red and black and a white and black polka dot as well as alot of the black and whites.

Here's another black and white-I had bought this fabric years ago at a quilt show: you know, one of those rolled up fat quarters...well when I got it home I discovered it was a skeleton fabric :(

not really me...but it looks great here-I like the boldness of the white.

Here's one more black and white-its a Japanese fabric...that covers all the blacks.

Here's you can see the last white with the small black leaves-I think this was an Elly S reproduction fabric if I remember correctly.

One of the fun things of this project was using all sorts of different "era" fabrics and seeing how well each one added to the other and the overall look.

I feel like and enabler... It's not like these are on sale or anything, but I just got an advertisement from Hancock's of Paducah (funny thing - I usually delete them right away, really I do.) & saw black & white fabrics, so I peeked. On the ad, there are actually 2 black & white sets being featured, so we must be right on tract for what is currently popular. :o)

I was soooo tempted to get the black & white minky - but the sticker shock saved me.

(Hopefully I do not indulge on black & whites too much next weekend at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show.)

Thursday, February 19, 2009

I have created a Flickr group for all of you to post your pictures. Part of the reason for this is I am still getting requests to join the group and the blog only allows 100 people to post. I thought this would be a great way for others to join in on the challenge. So go here to join!

Friday, February 13, 2009

i've chosen my extra colour which will be blue and i know what blocks i'm going to make, but i haven't worked out how to upload photos to blogger... help! can somebody contact me and tell me how to do it please - i'm used to using typepad and i'm being completely blogger incompetent!

thanks in advance,toni :O)xxx

http://theredbootquiltcompany.typepad.com

UPDATED POST

aha!!! it wasn't ME being incompetent - it was my COMPUTER!!! my firewall was blocking everything! here are the first couple of blocks i've made.

My quilt top for the Black an white Quilt challenge is finished and I am so happy.It is going to be a sofaquilt and I plan to send it away to be quilted. I feel a lot safer leaving the quilting to someone pro, Quilt'n Arendal. I am thinking about having fleece as backing , what do you think?

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

It took me a while to finally settle on my one additional color for the Black and White Challenge: ice blue. I saw a quilt online months ago made in black, white and ice blue and it was stunning!! Now, I'm not saying that my quilt will be, but at least it will have stunning colors. I'm not one who typically likes brights, and I've always thought brights went well with black and white. In order to tone down the quilt, I've chosen this:

I left the photo a bit larger than normal, hopefully, you will be able to see the fabric color well.

Monday, February 9, 2009

So I got this fantastic striped fabric, onsale last month. I am using this to make a literal ton of HST's for a border. I made over 150 of these only to find that it was not quite enough.

They are going together in strips like this and make up the last border (1.5") on my lap quilt. What you can't detect is that that quilt (below) is actually in 3 pieces so that I can machine quilt it. I have actually quilted one of the sections, but have not yet photographed it. I made a quilt at Christmastime like this and it worked very well. It was completely indistinguishable that it was made in pieces. I am hoping to quilt one section every couple weeks. It is tedious quilting, and quite honestly, I have lost steam on this quilt and have refocused my interests elsewhere. I will finish it soon though!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Here is the finished product. The more I look at it the more I like it. This project was all about new techniques for me....couching, random stiching/quilting and even the way I put the binding on (I strayed from my normal way and mixed it up a bit - don't mind the results but will need more practice before I try it on a quilt). Blogged about it here.

Okay ... I know . . . it's that old black and white with red again . . . I cannot help it, IT IS my FAVORITE! So these are just some hearts that I paper-pieced for a friend. I hope she will enjoy the colors as I do!

Well . . . these strips represent an attempt (at least) to break away from the black and white with red . . . I hope I will enjoy the finish as much as I do my favorite. Stay tuned . . . teeheehee!UPDATE: PROGRESS ON THAT BLACK/WHITE plus BLUE . . . I have no idea what the end will be, but I like what's happening so far . . .